The experienced Alaskan bike packer rode from Astoria, Oregon across to Yorktown, Virginia in just a little over 18 days, taking a huge chunk of almost three days off the former women’s record, which was set by Juliana Buhring in 2014.

Right up to the last hours of the long race, it was uncertain who would come first in 2016 with Wilcox, who also holds the women’s record for the Tour Divide, catching Greek rider Steffen Streich in the middle of the night.

When Wilcox came across Streich on the course, he waited for her after she briefly took a wrong turn and proposed that they ride over the line together. “I was like ‘no it’s a race,’” Wilcox said on the Trans Am Facebook live feed as she sat at the Yorktown Victory Monument finish line. “And then I just took off.”

Wilcox quickly built a gap that had her well clear by the time she made it to the finish to receive the well-earned congratulations, both in person and online, from the many who had watched the race unfold via live tracker.

Streich, who spent most of the race out the front, arrived at the finish mid-morning around two hours after Wilcox. In third place it was American rider Evan Deutsch, who Wilcox had been riding with up until the final couple of days.

The rest of the riders are still out on the course, but even with days to go for the remainder of the top ten it seems certain that this will be a ground-breaking year for female cyclists at the Trans Am in more ways than one. Not only has Wilcox won the race, but two more women are also currently holding top ten positions. It’s big leap ahead from last year’s race when there were no female solo finishers.

High mountains, windy flats and power climbs

The riders who ended up battling for the top positions didn’t take long to leap out of the pack once the race left the start line at Astoria and headed into the mountains.

Streich took an early lead and in the initial week of the race it was Streich and Sarah Hammond duelling for first place, however a wrong turn which added more than 120 kilometres and then the mountains of Colorado took a heavy toll on Australia’s Hammond. She was unused to riding at altitude, so struggling for breath she fell back through the field. From then it was Wilcox and Deutsch in second and third as they paired up in pursuit of Streich.

Across the hot flats of Kansas Streich held the lead and he was lucky enough to have the all-important ferry crossing over the Ohio River fall in his favour at the end of last week. He made it across, while Wilcox and Deutsch missed the last ferry and spent hours on the other side as they waited for the first ferry of the morning. However, as he neared the end of the race and the short punchy climbs, his luck turned as he was riddled by flat tyres and navigational issues.

Steffen Streich in the short on sleep days as the end of the race neared

The gap shrank and Wilcox, who consistently seemed to fare better on less time at rest, forged ahead of Deutsch and was then in constant pursuit as she and Streich forfeited sleep in the dash to the finish line.

The race continues for the rest of the top ten. Kai Edel looks sure to take fourth place as he has a buffer of well over 300 kilometres, while American rider Benjamin Colwill currently has the upper hand in the battle for fifth with early race leader and the second-placed female rider Hammond. Then rounding out the top ten on the road it’s Ken Bathurst, Massimiliano Fancoli, third-placed female Janie Hayes and Jay Petervary.

There’s no advantage to be gained from riding next to someone in a race like this, just from drafting…

Crosswinds much?

claude cat

Isn’t part of the challenge dealing with the loneliness of the ride? Technically within the rules, but morally?
If you don’t think there was an advantage riding together, well, ok lets disagree.

mass1ve

IMHO, Riding together because you ended up together on any particular day is fine. Coordinating your efforts so as to ride together day-after-day is no longer solo – that’s pairs. There are many advantages to riding together eg shared navigation, shared lights when riding at night, increased safety, someone to talk to, shared decision making, help with mechanicals etc. Pairing up surely goes against the spirit of “solo unsupported”. It’s not “non-drafting, unsupported”. To be clear, I think the rules need some sorting out, not that the riders have cheated.

WateryWilly

“help with mechanicals” – anyone who does this would be disqualified – probably both of them. But nothing in the rules prevents people from riding together, but if one breaks down, the other can wait and watch, but offer no assistance. I don’t know why folks have an issue with this – watch the movie “Inspired to ride” – there’s a whole lot of “riding together” that happens, and as long as you’re not drafting, or assisting each other in any way, it’s fine. As for “shared navigation” – against the rules. But what keeps someone from just following someone else at a short distance? According to you guys, that should be against the rules. How does one pass someone else, then? You’re going to have a time limit on how long one rider can be within sight of another rider? How would that work? How would that be enforced? Riding together – usually means one person is riding faster than they otherwise would, but also means the other person is usually riding slower than they otherwise would. i think you guys are nitpicking.

Danny Boyd

anyone who actually rides a bike, knows there’s a massive difference riding alone, and “beside” someone… its a really long way, and i dont doubt for 1 minute they both drafted at times, going by the morales/ethics they employed from the very beginning to the end.

Dimitris Mavropoulos

U are very funny man!!!!

Danny Boyd

side by side IS drafting. you dont ride a bike do you?

AK Peach

We weren’t there riding so we can ‘armchair quarterback’ all day if we want. Lael is a pretty honest and humble person, rarely rides with anyone. It is difficult to find someone that rides the same as you (pace, etc.). Since Lael came in almost 8 hours ahead of Evan, one might wonder if she assisted him more than he assisted her. If you watched Inspired to Ride, the 2014 race had a pair of Italian men riding together who taunted Juliana along the way. They couldn’t believe they were being beat by a woman. One has to wonder, if it were two men instead of Lael & Evan, would we be having this same discussion?

Writingprincess

Amen. This is so ridiculous that it was even brought up. The chick won by HOURSSSS…not minutes she not only beat everyone else she dusted them. To say that she “cheated,” is ridiculous and smacks of sexism. It’s not even on the table that she cheated. She won. Period. There’s no asterisk. No addendum. No commentary needed.

claude cat

I’m surprised you even bring this context up. Of course the same question would have been asked if Evan won.

AMK3072

That’s your agenda to claim it is sexism.

It isn’t. I couldn’t care about the gender who did it, it’s the individuals actions that count. They rode together for days and days. That is not ‘solo’.

Chris

You’ve got to be kidding. Embarrassing stuff.

Danny Boyd

yes we would be having this discussion. dont forget stephen’s convenient short cut

2_Scott

I disagree completely. It’s ridiculous to assume that on a Trans Am race the riders wouldn’t encounter one another and even more ridiculous to assume that if they did they would alter their course so as to avoid the other rider.

claude cat

They road more than half the distance together. It was meant to be a solo, assisted road race.

WateryWilly

“It was meant to be a solo, un-assisted road race”. Riding with someone else does NOT mean “assisted”. If you each navigate your own ride, then that is not “assisted”. If you discuss which way to go, then THAT is “assisted”, and not allowed. It’s very nuanced. If one breaks down, the other can wait, but not offer any – ANY – assistance, not even advice, but they’re certainly allowed to wait and watch.

AMK3072

Riding alongside someone may not be ‘assisted’ but it also means it isn’t solo.

Solo by it’s very definition means you do it on your own.

WateryWilly

Ok. Solo. I guess that means you have to forage for food, because if you talk to the guy at McDonald’s to order a burger, that’s not “solo”. And you can’t go to a bike shop to get your broken bike fixed, because that’s not “solo”. Just how “solo” is this event supposed to be?
I know, I know, NOW I’m being ridiculous. But it’s a fair question – How “solo” is this event supposed to be?

AMK3072

Have you looked at the Trans Am web page?http://transambikerace.com/rules/
That is pretty clear about how ‘solo’ it is meant to be. Where it is vague is on the riding with someone but I’d say that doing that is not in the spirit of the race.

AMK3072

It’s not about altering the course. There is no scope to do that.

It’s about whether riding as a pair for days on end, resting in the exact same towns is in the spirit of the race.

2_Scott

I’ll look forward to both of your solo attempts next year.

run

Bravo!
Awesome work, Lael! I couldn’t imagine doing 375 km a day for 18 days straight as being humanly possible.
As for the people contesting the results, let the organizers who set the rules decide. Oh, they have already decided :-) And if you still disagree, sign up for next year!

The article doesn’t mention that Streich made a fatal mistake when he woke from a short nap in the middle of the night and started riding west for quite some time. Watching it unfold via the tracking was pretty interesting. We couldn’t figure out what he was doing. Backtracking to correct an incorrect route or didn’t know what direction he was going. They met, in Bumpass. Lael did take a wrong turn after that but quickly realized her mistake and turned around. Streich wanted to ride to the finish together but Lael noted it was a race and continued to pedal. Her Di2 battery died and she single-speeded for quite sometime before stopping to change the battery with some difficulty. Streich never never caught her and she finished before him.

Hi Valerie, Streich did have more than his share of navigation mistakes but if you watch the Facebook love feed Lael herself says she made a navigation mistake at that point. Simone

Zoutpiel

Correct, they both did. SS went off course a couple times. Crucially, as AK Peach points out – it was SS that made the huge blunder which most likely cost him the race. His GPS was faulty, he woke up from a short sleep and pedalled in the wrong direction. After 10 miles or so he met Lael coming the other way (they had never met before that point) and realised his blunder. It was after that Lael made the (minor) navigation error and this conversation happened. Sh hauled ass, hid behind a servo to change her DI2 battery and then rode on to the finish. Turns out SS spent a fair time at the same servo refuelling and if you count back the time lost from his 20 miles extra towards the end, she was still ahead.

Chaotic310

If you watch the documentary “Inspired to Ride,” two Italian riders biked together the whole time and came in with the same time. Nobody complained about that.

winkybiker

The woman they were so desperate to beat (they accused her of cheating) eventually beat them didn’t she?

Chaotic310

Yes, Juliana Buhring came in 5th overall (20:23:46), the Italians came in 7th/8th (21:00:42).

Danny Boyd

they didnt ride the entire way together, and there was plenty of talk about it during the event. at times they were close… but what evan and lael did wes entirely different from the beginning to the end. that was Pairs riding, not solo.

Chris

Had they won I’d imagine there would have been complaints.

Valeria Maselli

I’ve been following the race for the whole time, Lael was doing her own race and, in the last few days, she was pushing very hard to take the lead. If you watch the tracker (you can reply it) you can see it doesn’t seem Evan and Lael are riding together in a way that suggest drafting, at least not to me. It was quite clear in the end that Lael was pushing stronger than Evan but the race was solid in Steffen’s hands until he made that navigation mistake and everything went wild. I guess there wouldn’t have been any fuss if Lael wasn’t a woman, sorry for nice men out there but I see some envy out there.

AMK3072

Damn straight there would be a fuss.

Lael’s efforts in setting a new record are to be commended.

It’s not about the drafting, they clearly weren’t. It’s about whether riding side by side for hours and hours is really ‘solo’. Just having someone to chat with, have a laugh about something you might see out on the road, etc would make it a very different experience to someone battling away on their own.

Zoutpiel

They were often a mile or more apart too

AMK3072

Is that based on the spot tracker because that doesn’t actually tell you anything?

Danny Boyd

there’s no envy on my part at all, Evan’s result is also tarnished in my eyes.

mightyatom03

Lael did work hard to close the gap between her and Steffen at the end, but this article doesn’t mention why Steffen lost his remaining lead–it seems he woke up disoriented on Wednesday morning (and still having GPS issues) and started riding backward along the course. Lael didn’t catch him–he inadvertently went back to her! Then after she took off ahead of him, she did make a wrong turn, which he pointed out to her. She explains this in the video on the Facebook page. But anyway, good for her, she is amazing. (And yes it is completely within the rules for racers to ride together.)

Eleri

Great report thanks. I got totally caught up in watching the race unfold and could barely separate myself from the tracker and social media in the last 24 hours. Label rode fabulously well and was strong right until the end and definitely had the better tactics in the last 2 days. Very impressive ride.

doug

So the leader waiting for her after she made a mistake, then she took off because it is a race? He learned a lesson didn’t he!

AK Peach

He asked her to stop. She did stop because he waited for her. After a short conversation of him asking to ride together to the end, she continued on her ride and Stephen stayed for quite some time. Lael had her own equipment malfunction to deal with as well as she had to ‘single-speed’ for quite some time before she stopped to change her battery. All of these issues are part of the race. It isn’t just physical, it is mental, technical and mechanical. Think of the bigger picture and not dwell on one mishap in an entire 18 days or more of a race. I’m sure Stephen will regret that he rode the wrong way for the rest of his life, I can’t imagine how he felt when they met. Given all the comments about Lael cheating, I’m wondering if Stephen feels that way. Or would he be appalled at all the accusations of cheating and negative comments being posted.

Gabrielle Gabrielli

Fantastic story! Congratulations to Lael Wilcox and all the other amazing cyclists for their accomplishments.

Danny Boyd

not a true result in my opinion. greast effort tho. in an event where you can blatantly flout the rules and even take short cuts, it certainly tarnishes what was a pretty fantastic effort

disqus_uTlYyFzYzE

I read elsewhere that it was Streich who took the wrong turn. Not surprising to see all the butt hurt macho dicks immediately claiming she cheated… Their egos are suffering.

amanda

I am a woman. I guess Lael didn’t cheat because she won the race but I believe she enjoyed a significant psychological advantage by riding for such a long distance with someone else. That is not my idea of riding solo.

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